Computer not starting up properly?

I have a laptop running Windows XP SP2, and as of late it has started to develop an unusual problem upon startup. What happens is during start up, some of the programs set to run at start up will not start up. And I can't even get these programs to run after this even if I try to manually start them up.

This problem started a few weeks backs and would occasionally happen at start up, but could usually be corrected by just restarting again. Eventually it started occuring more frequently and now it happens every time i start up.

The programs that will not start up are AOL Instant Messanger, WinPatrol, and Norton Antivirus Corporate(which I uninstalled to no avail). These are the only 3 I've noticed and none will start up when this happens.

Anyone ever seen this problem? Does it sound like a virus problem?

Computer not starting up properly?pc security

sorry to say but it sounds like a virus to me

Computer not starting up properly?symantic

It does sound like a virus disabling your protections. Download HijackThis from www.merijn.org and run a scan with log file, then post it to castlecops.com, tomcoyote.com, or email it to me and I can advise you further.
go to google and type ad-aware and download

then type avg and download

run both programs

problem fixed

if not

buy a registry cleaner and that will solve the problem